Kasha's Strange Adventure
by war hippy fatigues
Summary: In a bizarre twist of fate, it was a jet black jungle cat who was tasked with saving the multiverse.
1. Home

I'm not what you would call an extraordinary person. Far from it, actually.

What do I do for a living? I hunt lizards. Big ones, but those are the only ones worth hunting. They aren't the most meaty animals out there, but their flesh carries a certain _tang_ to it that you can't find anywhere else. That's probably why they're called tangs, but I'm getting sidetracked here. To me, tang meat tastes like vengeance. A tang killed my mother, you see. I decided to return that favor many times over. Perhaps that's a childish way of grieving for her, but I will admit there's a certain thrill to revenge that I don't like giving up.

However, there were often days when I wondered why I bothered keeping up my bloodthirsty occupation. Tangs used to be quite common around my city, back when mom was young, but over the years we got better and better at hunting them. Now it's a challenge just catching a glimpse of the stupid things.

My friend, Boon, said I should just give up hunting and go work on a farm somewhere. Boon, bless his heart, just couldn't see why I would never be content babysitting rubber trees and jungle fowl all day. I wanted a little excitement in my life! Well, just a little here and there, but not a whole lot. I received a nasty bite from a tang once, and I didn't want a repeat of that incident. Still, a little blood and a little running brought a lot more life into me than animal husbandry ever did.

Sometimes, I thought about joining one of the road crews that were paving solid pathways through the thick jungle, to other farms and places of interest. Not that I had any interest in shoveling dirt, mind. I would much rather be one of the guards. Marching about menacingly, carrying a big, sharp spear, and impaling a few animals here and there, _that_ was what I was hoping for.

I was thinking of all the wild things I might run into in the jungle as I walked back home from another unsuccessful hunting trip. I hadn't found a single tang, which was now less disappointing to me than it was to my finances. Tang meat was now quite a luxury in my city, and I was rewarded with hefty sum of cash whenever I did manage to bring even a single tang back. But these days, it didn't happen often enough for it to keep me afloat. Sooner or later I would have to get some other job, but for now, I was content doing what I had been doing for the last decade.

The bustling city of Leeandra greeted me as I stepped out of the jungle. Just half a century before, the city had been confined to the towering trees above the ground, as nobody dared sleeping where the hungry creatures of the night prowled. But times had changed, and now the deadliest thing you were likely to find near the city was an unmarked drainage ditch. The stench would never leave you if you fell into one of those things.

There was a great contrast between the old treehouses high in the sky and the newer, stout wooden buildings that now covered the ground. The treehouses were smaller in width, cooled by the winds that always blew at that height, and were generally home to older families and older people, who still talked disdainfully about the new crop of bottom dwellers who had abandoned the traditions of their ancestors. The places on the ground were vertically challenged, often hastily constructed, and supported by a constantly growing number of grinning young people with an endless amount of optimism and good cheer. There were many more businesses down here then there were up above; they were staffed by many a young entrepreneur with dreams of riches and fame, and many sorts of things to sell. Spices and fabrics from faraway places, ornately carved figures of all shapes, all sorts of rubber based solids that were pliable and yet retained their shape, food both cheaply and elegantly prepared, all sorts of iron tools! Those were just a few of things I saw passing by the crowded streets on my way home.

Times were indeed changing. The city I grew up with was much different from the somber, compact outpost my parents lived in. My dad said everything changed because of a new species of bird an explorer had found. Qualls, as they were named, were a much more productive type of bird than any others we knew of; for food production, anyway. They laid very large and nutritious (but bland tasting) eggs each morning, and they could be harvested for a large amount of meat. The qualls let us feed much more people than we ever could before, which led to a huge boom in population in the city. It allowed us to shift from a society of hunters, scrambling for food while trying to avoid being hunted, to farmers, watching over our birds while staying firmly in one place. It let us clear out the jungle from threats, so we could walk on the ground without fear.

Not that the changes came without some growing pains, of course. Having a bunch more people in one place meant that Leeandra became a lot dirtier and messier than it had before. More people to steal from meant more thieves and scoundrels looking for a way to trick people out of their money. There was a growing pressure among many of the youths of the city to leave, and to establish a new city somewhere else. It was no secret as to why they felt that way. Many of them felt constricted by having so much competition, and many others felt looked down upon by the elders of the city just because they slept below the trees. To them, opportunity was calling, and opportunity was westward. Already, a few brave souls had staked out into the wilderness, promising to replace it with civilization in only twenty years. It was a bold claim, but seeing how Leeandra had already transformed in such a short timeframe, it was a claim I could wholeheartedly believe.

I was a bit of an oddball to most of the people I knew. I was young, but I still lived with my dad in one of the old treehouses. I was young, but I still went out hunting for creatures instead of getting involved in one of the many small industries now thriving in the city. Yet despite those two things, I was still filled with excitement for what the future held, instead of being held back by nostalgia for what once was. I suppose it came from being the daughter of the king of oddballs.

Seegan, my father, was deeply interested in the paranormal. Our house was filled to the brim with all sorts of strange objects: ugly dolls, strangely scented candles that wouldn't burn with rubber oil, black tar that had dried in the shape of tang bones, all kinds of skulls, and a strange black ring that was kept hidden underneath the floorboards. Dad had used to wear the ring when mom was still alive, but he took it off when she died and refused to wear it since. He never told me why.

Most of the city council, who were about as old as dad was, were fairly invested into mysticism as well, and often sought out his advice on all sorts of matters. I always rolled my eyes when dad would put on his gruffest expression while fiddling with his candles. He was a hack! I could never see anything meaningful in the dancing patterns of a flame's shadow, nor in the changing shapes of the stars in the sky. I knew dad couldn't either, but he would still tell the council what they should do to solve their problems. Sometimes, dad's solutions would work. Sometimes they wouldn't.

Still, I couldn't say that dad was a charlatan playing the council for fools. From what I could tell, he really did believe in all the mystical nonsense he said. Even when we were alone, he would constantly be trying to predict the future from the night sky, and he always insisted I take his divinations seriously. One of them even predicted my death should I not heed it. When it didn't come true, I was always quick to rub it in his face whenever he got all huffy about my views on such matters. He had a list of excuses for his failed prophecies a mile long, and not once did he think to consider what the real problem with his methods was. I tried to really set him straight a few times, but it was a lost cause.

The sky was a lovely shade of purplish blue as I climbed up to my house. It contrasted nicely with the orange glow of the many torches that lined the city streets. Those lights would be going out soon enough, but for the moment, it provided a nice view. After I reached the balcony leading inside the treehouse, I stopped to watch the many people below heading their own ways throughout the city. It was oddly calming to see how tiny everyone looked from afar, like they were pebbles being sifted around a little diorama of a town.

Dad was sitting at a table, deep in conversation with one of his friends when I arrived. His friend, whose name escaped me, was just as interested in the occult as dad was, and they would often spend long nights talking about mysteries they had not yet unraveled. Boon was there too, although I couldn't imagine why. He had no taste in either shamanistic rituals or lizard hunting.

"You're late, Kasha," Seegan grunted as I opened the door.

"Oh well," I said. He had no reason to care if I was late or not; I was an adult now, after all.

He waited a moment before he began speaking again, his mouth contorting into odd expressions as if he was chewing his words before he spoke them.

"Kasha, I've been waiting to talk to you about this for a long time, but I always put it off. For years, I avoided telling you about this, because I didn't think you were ready for it. I didn't want to put all that responsibility on you. But now..."

I didn't reply. This spiel was completely new to me, and I was interested in finding out what had made dad so worried. I grabbed a chair and joined him at the table.

"I'm getting old, Kasha. Old, weary, and less sure of myself. Ever since your mother died, in fact, I knew... I knew I wasn't able to handle this task. But I know you can."

Dad then walked over to a spot on the ground, and pulled one of the planks out. He came back with the old ring he once wore. It was neither pretty nor ugly, just plain and set with a black stone.

"Take it, Kasha. I have faith that you will put it to good use."

I took the ring from him. It was surprisingly heavy.

"Kasha. I must ask that you take on the role I failed at many years ago. I must ask that you become a Traveler."

"A traveler?" I asked. "What do you mean?"

Dad took in a deep breath. "Travelers are... how would you say... well, they travel. Between worlds."

I sighed. "Oh, dad. I thought you were being serious here for a moment. Don't tell me this is more of your magic hocus pocus-"

Dad abruptly got up and slammed his fists on the table. "It is _not_ hocus pocus, Kasha!" he snarled. "It's real. Realer than you could ever imagine."

I still didn't believe him, but for his sake, I decided to pretend to take him seriously. "Alright, dad. What is it you want me to do, anyway?"

Dad didn't look fully convinced, but he relaxed and sat back down. "I want you to... well, tomorrow, I'll tell you how to go from here to somewhere else, where you're needed. Once you get there, you'll understand what to do."

"Uh, sure. Is that all?"

"For now." Dad got up with his friend and walked outside, where they resumed their lengthy discussion.

"What was the deal with that?" I asked Boon. "From the sound of his speech, I thought he was talking about something really heavy. And how do you fit into all of this, anyway?"

Boon shrugged. "Don't ask me. I know about this as much as you do. Possibly even less. Seegan said he'd explain my role in this stuff later on, but I don't know what that's going to be about. Anyways, it's getting late. I should be going now."

Boon left, leaving only the quiet whisperings of the wind audible in the house. I stood in the room for a moment, then decided to head for my room. It was pretty late, and a long day walking and looking for tangs had left me tired. Not exhausted, but tired and ready enough for sleep.

Dad's words came to mind to me again as I laid down on my bed. 'People who travel between worlds'. It made me smile. The concept itself was ridiculous, but I wouldn't have signed up for such a job even if it was real. To me, there was only one world, and that world was big enough for me. That world was Eelong, and it would always be my home. It was a place of great, towering trees, giant flowers that smelled like rotting meat, slavering beasts with an insatiable hunger and a terrific sense of smell, great cliffs with silvery metals hidden away beneath the dark rock, and even bright beaches and great oceans rumored to exist far, far away. It was my home, and it was full of mystery and excitement and familiarity and comfort and so many other things. I had never once wanted to leave it.

* * *

The next day was overcast, with thick, low clouds covering the band of sunlight that struggled to pierce through them. It had already rained earlier in the morning, judging from the puddles covering the balcony, and it looked ready to start raining again at any time. It was bad weather for going on a trip through the wilderness, which was exactly what dad wanted me to do.

"Follow this map," dad said, handing me a thickly detailed slab of rubber tree bark. "It will take you to a valley, where a trail will lead you to a grotto that hides a stone passage into the ground. Do not attempt to enter this passage. Instead, speak this word to it. ' _Veelox_ '. Do not forget this word. Repeat it to me, so that I can be sure you know it."

"Veelox," I said. What in the world was a Veelox?

"Good. Take this as well," he said, giving me a folded up scroll. "It contains instructions that won't make sense until you say the word. Good luck."

I shrugged and began heading out the door.

"Oh, and Kasha... be careful, won't you?" he said, his expression softening.

"Uh, sure," I said. I didn't understand his sudden sentimentality, for I had been on many trips outside of the city before without him caring. I guess he really had taken all this traveling business to heart. No doubt he would be displeased when his precious stone tunnel failed to do anything to me.

I left the city, carrying with me a small pack filled with dried quall meat, my old hunting spear, and the things dad have given me. The map was quite old, dating back to when Leeandra was a quarter of its current size, and it was directing me out to the north, near the spot where mom had been killed. Maybe that was why dad had looked so sad. Thinking about her put far more of a damper on my mood then the weather did.

As the day grew longer, sunlight began to break through the clouds. The light helped me a little in navigating the land, but I was already quite familiar with it. I had already been out in this area many times before, as it was the place I liked hunting in the most. Hunting was something I did for revenge, and clearing the place where my mother had been killed of the filthy tangs felt the most satisfactory to me.

Soon, I reached the valley my dad had talked about. The trail he had talked about was hard to spot, being a tiny strip of dirt that peeked out from the thick bushes and grasses that layered the ground. I followed it to the roots of a dead tree, thick and squat, that partially covered the entrance of a hollow beneath the ground. A strange star shaped symbol was carved on the tree, whose meaning I could not determine. I crawled underneath the roots and found myself in a dark, cramped area. After my eyes adjusted to the light, I saw the stone tunnel my dad had talked about. It was rather unremarkable, and certainly too cramped for me to squeeze through. There was no doubt that it went absolutely nowhere.

"Well, this is it, I guess," I muttered. "Veelox. There."

For a moment, nothing happened. Then, I heard a loud rumbling fill the air. At first, I thought the tree was falling over, and made to leave, only to discover that I was being pulled back towards the tunnel by an invisible force. I looked back at the tunnel and saw that it was changing. The stones were moving apart, growing wider, exposing a tube of light that seemed to stretch on for an eternity. I wasn't certain of whether I screamed or unleashed a barrage of profanity next; I only knew that I tried everything I could to escape the tunnel and none of it worked. It dragged me in and pulled me away, into the unknowable. Into a stream of light, shapes and sounds that meant nothing to me, as I tumbled away from the grotto.


	2. A City Without People

I didn't spend very long being pulled through that ethereal tube, but as far as I was concerned, any time spent trapped in a spinning vortex of light was far too long. After a bit, I saw a fixed blotch of colors at the end of the tunnel that was growing more focused as I approached it. Soon I began to move faster, until I was flung out of the tunnel and into a dim, gray room. I struggled to my feet, only to see that the tunnel was closing behind me, the rocks closing up to hide the light that had carried me here. Before I could move, they had crunched together, sealing away the passage. I quickly lunged forward and tried to pry them apart, but they wouldn't budge.

For a moment, I stood there, utterly unsure of what to do. Then I remembered dad had given me instructions for after I had said that word that had caused the tunnel to open. I hastily opened the scroll and began reading.

 _Kasha,_

 _If you are reading this, then you have been successfully transported to another world._

 _There are, in fact, many other worlds besides ours. Only Travelers like you and me can use the tunnels like the one you found to travel between them. They are called 'flumes'. To use them, you must speak the name of the world you want to travel to, and they will take you there without delay. The world you have just arrived in is, of course, Veelox._

 _I did not send you on this journey because of any childish whims on my part. The worlds we can travel to have all been suffering at the hands of a foreign invader, who spreads chaos and death wherever it goes. The other Travelers believe that each world will at some point walk a fragile balance between success and ruin. A 'turning point', if you will. They fear that this invader will cause each and every world to topple at their turning points, to fall into disorder. Countless lives would be lost, and thousands of years of civilization would be destroyed._

 _Worse yet, there is a rumor that something much worse would happen if all the worlds were to be lost. We fear that existence itself would be in peril._

 _It is for this reason that I chose you, Kasha, to be the next Traveler from Eelong. I have grown old and feeble, and I have never had the strength of will and the courage that you possess. You are brave and strong, Kasha, and I know you have the ability to set things right. It is for this reason that I will seal the tunnel on Eelong once you leave, so that you will not be able to return until you have stopped the invader, and saved all the other worlds from destruction._

 _I know that you will not understand at first. I know you will hate me for doing this to you. But Kasha, these people need you. All the other worlds need your help. If you don't assume your duty as a Traveler, they will die, and all will be lost. You must help them._

 _There are a few other things to note. First, you must keep your ring with you at all times. Without it, you cannot use the tunnels to go to other worlds. You can also use it to transmit written journals back to Eelong. Boon will receive them through his own ring. I will have already told him about the nature of the rings and the worlds before you could have finished writing anything. It is important to send us these journals so we can keep track of your progress. The ring will also allow you to read and speak the languages from other worlds. Again, do not lose it._

 _Second, people will leave things for you at the entrance to each tunnel. These things will help you succeed at your given task in each different world. Use them as you see fit._

 _Lastly, do not take things endemic to one world and bring them to another. The worlds are not to be mixed. Ever._

 _Seegan_

My expression slowly shifted from a look of shock to one of anger. I had indeed traveled to another world. I was tricked into it, in fact. All because dad couldn't handle the responsibility of... well, I didn't know exactly what saving these other worlds entailed, but he couldn't handle it nonetheless.

Still, I had one last hope of returning home. Maybe if the other end of the flume hadn't been sealed off yet...

"Eelong," I said.

Nothing happened. The flume remained dead and lifeless.

"Eelong!"

Nothing changed.

"Eelong! EELONG!" I shouted, pounding on the stones with my fists. "Eelong, dammit! Open up! Eelong! Eelong! Eelong..."

All I got from that was sore hands. The rocks were as inanimate as ever, taunting me with their indifference.

In that moment, I felt a hideous rage swelling inside of me, the kind that I hadn't felt since mom died. This time it was directed at dad, and if he had been there beside me, I would have mauled him pretty badly. He wasn't there, so I instead vented my anger on the immediate surroundings. I scratched and kicked at the walls. I cursed all the curses I ever knew. I shredded the map and the scroll dad gave me. I screamed and yelled and threw my spear all around the room. In the end, it didn't do much good. It just left my hands and feet aching and my lungs sore. I was still there, trapped on Veelox, with no way to get back home.

For few minutes after that, I just stood there, breathing heavily. Then the more rational part of my mind started focusing. If I wanted to get the flume working on the other end again, I'd have to figure out what was wrong with this world, fix it, and find out the names of the other worlds that needed saving. Dad had mentioned other travelers, and if there was one on this world, then they might have the information I needed to complete my task. Perhaps they might even know of an alternative method of getting to Eelong. It gave something to hope for.

The first task was getting out of the room the flume was in. I found a hard to notice door that I could just barely squeeze through, which led to a desolate tunnel that seemed to be below the ground. It was lit by little objects embedded in the ceiling, although many of them no longer glowed or had been broken. The floor was laid with thin bands of dull gray and black metal that ran along the passage. At the edges of each side of the tunnel was a narrow strip of the same stuff the walls and ground were made of, that was elevated above the metal. The place held an interesting duality to me. It was awe inspiring, for I could not imagine how it was ever built; how the rocky underground was carved away so smoothly and in such quantities, or how there were lights glowing without a fire or any smoke. It was also unnerving, for the place appeared dilapidated and abandoned, with rust and mold eating away at many of the surfaces there, and the ground was littered with all kinds of debris, including dangerously sharp shards of a clear material.

I stepped forward, away from the flume, only to hesitate. Dad had said very clearly that things from one world were not to be mixed with another, and although I was still quite mad at him, I doubt he would make up a rule like that just to screw with me. Looking at the stuff I had, the tang hide bag and the quall meat definitely had to go. I reluctantly scarfed down as much of the meat as I could and left the rest in the room, hoping it wouldn't smell too bad when I got back. I refused to leave my spear behind, however. I could have justified it by saying the inhabitants of this world were clearly familiar with both wood and metal, given what I had seen of it thus far, but truthfully, I didn't feel very safe without it.

That wasn't to say that I felt particularly welcome in Veelox even with my spear. No one had left me any useful items when I got there, or even bothered giving me directions. After deliberating for a bit, I decided to head left down the underground tunnel. It looked no different then the right side did, but I tended to think that left was the better way to go, with all other things being equal.

For a while, I just walked down the passage. It was, for the most part, utterly lifeless. Occasionally I would see some kind of small creature or insect scurrying about in the corners of my vision, or hear water trickling away somewhere nearby, but on the whole it was silent and still. Every now and then I would run into a door that was either locked or just blocked on the other side. Eventually, I reached a place where the passage split off. One end had a series of steps leading upwards, while the other end went downward into a stagnant pool of dark water. I took the path leading upwards.

Climbing the steps took me to a small sort of lobby. There were a number of little, detailed pictures drawn on thin sheets of paper that were either fixed to the walls or lying on the ground, as well as several worn markings on the wall. At first, these were inscribed with a language that appeared utterly alien to me. But as I looked at them, they slowly began to fizzle and rearrange themselves into symbols that I recognized. Literacy was not a common talent in Leeandra, but it was something dad had insisted that I learned, and now, for once, it was proving to be mildly useful.

The problem was that, while I could speak the sounds that I read on the walls and the posters, their meanings were often lost to me. Just what in the world was something like 'gloid', or a 'new Lifelight experience'? What was 'Kilde Station'? I tried looking at some of the other posters that weren't completely worn out, but got absolutely nowhere, so I decided to move on.

The end of the lobby provided more steps that finally broke the surface of the ground. It was dusk outside, with the faint sun sending off the day in a blast of red, blue, and pink hues. It was a lot colder on Veelox than it had ever been at home, with a chilly wind blowing dust and garbage across the ground. The weather wasn't what caught my immediate attention, however. It was the city I was in, or rather, surrounded by.

I had thought that Leeandra was a city, but this one put it to shame in terms of sheer size and verticality. In all directions, towering pillars of metal and glass rose high into the sky, much higher than the tallest trees home ever reached. They were separated by black roads marked with yellow and white stripes that were cut at precise, perpendicular angles. There were a few, tiny trees here or there that were enclosed in their own little dirt patches, and they often stood next to smaller, but still formidable buildings of stone or metal that were wedged between the giant towers. No matter which direction I looked, I could see the shapes of artificial structures, growing smaller as they grew further and further away. I could not fathom the amount of effort required to build such a place, but this world certainly possessed it.

Yet, just like the underground tunnel I had been in, this place, too, was empty. The enormousness of the city made me expect that it would be bustling with life, but there wasn't any that I could see. In fact, it looked like there hadn't been much activity in a long time. Garbage was everywhere, piled in clumps, littering the streets, rotting away in overflowing containers no one had bothered to clean up. Windows were broken, much of the exposed metal had rusted, the color of many buildings was peeling off in thin strips, and it was crushingly quiet. There was only the light sounds of the wind and something faintly humming in the background. There was no one else there besides me. What in the world had happened here?

"Who are you?!" a voice suddenly shouted from behind me. I jumped and spun around.

There, on the face of a formerly black screen mounted on the entrance to the underground tunnel, was a creature. The creature was similar to an animal that lived on Eelong, but different in many ways. The gars of Eelong, as we called them, were short, pasty, and hairless, and mostly moved by walking around on four limbs, although they were capable of bipedal movement under certain circumstances. They tended to stick to their own, and most of them knew better than to mess around with us. The creature on the screen was similar in base features: pasty skin, no hair except on the top of its head, but from what I could see of it I knew it was no gar. It was standing tall, at ease on two legs, and it wore some kind of clothing that went downward from its neck. And it could speak. Gars couldn't speak.

"Who are you?! Respond!" the voice repeated, knocking me out of my thoughts. This time, I recognized it as being female, although there was no way I could distinguish that by looking at the creature. It was another benefit of my ring's translation, I supposed.

"I'm Kasha," I said, staring right back at the screen. Was the creature somehow located on the screen, or was that an image of it that appeared on the screen from somewhere else? I had no way of knowing.

" _Just_ Kasha?"

"Yeah." I did have a last name, but I didn't like sharing it if I could help it. It tended to elicit laughs from most people who heard it.

The creature frowned, and the screen blacked out for a second. When it reactivated, all I could see was the creature's face. A little, boxy bit of metal also came to life, and slowly turned in my direction.

"Exactly what are you, Kasha?" the creature asked, sporting a glare that could cut grass if aimed properly.

"A klee."

"What is a klee?"

I had no idea how to answer that, nor did I feel particularly inclined to. "I don't know. What are you? Why do I have to answer all your questions? Is there a traveler here that I can talk to?"

When I mentioned the word 'traveler', the creature briefly had a look of shock run across her face, which was replaced by an even deeper scowl.

"Stay there. I'll come and find you."

The screen went dark again. I had the option of waiting there for the creature, or I could try to find my own way through the city. The second option carried a high risk of me getting hopelessly lost, so I decided to wait.

It wasn't long before the creature returned. Clad in a smooth, dark blue fabric that covered most of her body, she walked quickly and with purpose. The little hair she did have was pale yellow in color, and reached down from the back of her head in a little bundle. On her wrist was a small metal contraption with several buttons whose function I could not guess at. She also wore the black ring of a traveler on her other hand. I figured I must have been quite lucky to run into another traveler almost as soon as I had entered Veelox.

"First off," the creature said, "You shouldn't go around talking about Traveler business to everyone you see. You're lucky I happened to be a Traveler, or else you could have ended up in serious trouble."

"Who are you, anyway?" I asked.

"Aja Killian. I'm the Traveler from Veelox, and I'm guessing you came from Eelong."

Now it was my turn to frown. "Why do you think that?"

"Because you aren't human- I mean, like me. I'm pretty sure all the other Travelers are human, although I haven't seen all of them. Now, why are you here?"

So, not only was I being forced to help save a bunch of other worlds, but now I knew I would be the only klee around. Great. "My dad sent me away from home to help all the other worlds not collapse in on themselves. He wanted me to start with this one."

Aja groaned and threw her arms in the air. "You've got to be kidding. After all that deliberation the others went though, you're the best they could come up with?!"

"What do you mean?"

"All of the older Travelers were holding a meeting to decide which of the younger ones would be the best choice for going to the other worlds and stopping this intruder who's been running amok. But why the hell did they choose you? You?! You don't know anything about computers, or electricity, or airplanes, or anything else that matters! You would stick out like a sore thumb no matter where you go! Why would they possibly think you were the best choice for the job? You should just go back to your world."

If only I could, Aja. "I can't."

"Why not?!"

I closed my eyes and folded my arms across my chest. "It doesn't matter if I was the best for the job or not at this point. I was chosen, so I was kicked out of Eelong. The flume is sealed up on that end. I can't go back until I've helped every other world avoid catastrophe. That's when... Seegan says he will open the flume again. So all I can do right now is try and help you with Veelox's problem."

Aja went from a look of anger to mild discomfort, or something like that. I wasn't too good with these humans and their facial expressions, although they weren't extremely different from how us klees looked. "I'm sorry, Kasha. I didn't know."

"That's right. You didn't know."

Aja looked too afraid to speak next, as she had perhaps realized that angering someone who probably weighed twice as much as her and sported claws wasn't the best idea in the world. I decided to pick up the slack. "What's going on with this city, anyway? It seems abandoned. Is that what the problem with this world is?"

"Sort of," Aja said. "The people are still here, they just aren't leaving Lifelight. Most of them, anyway."

"Lifelight? I think I saw that term on one of the poster things down there," I said, pointing towards the underground area. "I don't know what it means, though."

"It's a bit hard to explain." Aja glanced around the streets of the city. "It's getting late. You should head home with me and my aunt. We can talk about it there."

"You sound afraid that something might attack us out here."

"Yeah. There have been both looters and animals lurking about. I'd keep that spear of yours at the ready, just in case."

Thankfully, we didn't run into anything nasty on the way to Aja's house. Just more silence and emptiness, save for the loud shuffling of Aja's shoes. Clearly, humans were not particularly stealthy by nature. Aja didn't feel like talking, so I was left pondering why dad and the others had chosen me as their traveler of choice. I agreed with Aja. I had no understanding of many of the things that made this world run, and I was a completely different type of intelligent creature than the ones that inhabited the other worlds. What wisdom had led to me being selected for this job? Dad had told me I had the 'strength of will' to handle each situation, but I didn't really understand what he meant by that. The older Travelers had almost certainly made a mistake by picking me.

Aja and her aunt were staying in quite a fancy place, compared to the other houses I had seen in the city. It had its own garden walled off from the various city paths by a tall iron fence, filled with flowers of many colors and bushes that were cut into distinct shapes. The house itself was in good condition and didn't have piles of garbage surrounding it. Aja unlocked the gate to the fence with a key, and we were quickly greeted by another human.

"Aja? Did you find the person you were looking for?" a voice sweetly called out as we entered the house.

"As a matter of fact, I did," Aja replied.

The interior of the building was no less finely decorated than its exterior. The floor was made of finely polished wood covered by a deep purple carpet, and the walls were a mixture of a smooth, blue surface separated by pure white columns. The hallways were filled with many sorts of small plants that grew in vases, pictures of people that were not Aja, and intricate paintings of places that couldn't exist. Walking into the place made me cringe slightly, for I was probably tracking in all kinds of mud and dirt that would stain its beauty.

Aja's aunt was also there, although the two of them looked nothing alike. Where Aja was slim, thin faced, and sharp tongued, her aunt was plump, gentle, and always smiling. She didn't display a hint of surprise upon seeing me, either.

"So that's who you found!" Aja's aunt said. "The new Traveler from Eelong! I guess that was who Volom ended up picking."

"Evangeline, this is Kasha," Aja said. "Kasha, this is Evangeline."

"What was that you were saying about Volom?" I asked.

"Dear Volom," Evangeline said. "He was the elder Traveler of Veelox. The last we ever saw of him was when he was leaving to go to another one of those meetings between the other old Travelers. He never came back."

"I wired some of the cameras by the flume exits to try and keep a watch for if he ever returned," Aja said. "That was how I found you, Kasha."

"Wait," I said. "If Volom and Aja are the Travelers here, then how do you fit into this, Evangeline?"

"Oh, I'm just an acolyte," Evangeline said. "An acolyte's job is to collect our Traveler's journals, and to leave things by the flume. Most of the time we just leave clothes there, so the Travelers can fit into whatever world they're in. Unfortunately, things aren't going so well here in Veelox, as you might have guessed on the walk here. Now Travelers don't have to worry if they fit in here or not, as there's no one around to notice if someone is wearing the right clothes."

"I think we should talk about this over dinner," Aja said. "I'm hungry."

"Of course, dear! I'll go get out some gloid. Would you like to join us, Kasha?"

"No thanks," I said. "I already ate."

"Oh, but I insist."

What people ate on Veelox was rather disturbing. Instead of getting out some kind of dried or fresh meat, or even some vegetables, they instead retrieved a bunch of smooth little cups filled with a semisolid blue substance. Aja and Evangeline set them down on a table and quickly began spooning the stuff into their mouths. When I poked mine, it jiggled. It didn't smell like anything.

"What is this?" I asked.

"It's gloid!" Evangeline said. "It contains all essential nutrients and vitamins. It's perfectly nutritious."

I looked at it for a bit longer, and then pushed it away from me.

"So, the problem with Veelox is Lifelight," Aja said. "But to really understand why that is, I'd have to show you it. The only problem is, Lifelight was made to work on humans, not on pa-uh, klees."

"Oh, nonsense," Evangeline said. "Lifelight is very easy to explain. How it works is that they put you in a little tube, and then they make you fall asleep. Then they put you into a really good dream. The dream is so good, in fact, that you never want to leave it. That's where all the missing people from the city are. In Lifelight."

"Oh," I said.

Aja frowned. "Well, your explanation is missing a few key details, and it misrepresents the whole virtual reality process-"

"I know you're very passionate about these things, Aja," Evangeline whispered to her niece, "But I don't think Kasha actually cares about any of those details."

Aja glared at Evangeline and continued on. "The thing is, this Lifelight problem has been going on for much longer than we've known that an intruder was running around, messing with the worlds. Lifelight has been around for 60 years, in fact. It was draining the life out of Veelox long before I was born, so I already began working on a solution for it."

"So Lifelight isn't just a problem in this city?" I asked.

Aja nodded. "It's worse here in Rubic city than it is anywhere else, but it's spreading. With most people being locked away in their fantasies, food and energy production have been dropping dangerously low. Most of what's left has been siphoned off to keep Lifelight running and the people there alive. That means the rest of the infrastructure here is in bad shape. On the way out of the flume, you must have noticed that the subway tunnels have begun flooding. In a few weeks, the flume might not be accessible."

"But if... energy is running out, then what will happen when Lifelight runs out of that... stuff?"

"Then all the people in Lifelight will wake up to a world that's in dire straights. After that, I don't know what will happen next and I don't want to find out. That's where my solution comes in. I call it... the Reality Bug!"

"Even though this 'bug' was actually deliberately engineered to cause problems, and it can spread over networks, which would actually make it a worm," Evangeline said, playfully nudging Aja.

Aja rolled her eyes. "Whatever. The Reality Bug is designed to replace the fantasies of the people in Lifelight with their worst nightmares. In effect, it's basically the opposite of what Lifelight is intended to do. It will make being in Lifelight so awful that people will have no choice but to go back to reality, even if reality isn't in good shape right now."

"It sounds like you have this problem under control," I said.

"I think I do, but that's where the intruder comes in. We know someone has been using the flumes to travel and mess with the worlds, but I have no idea what they might have been doing to Veelox. They might have just written this world off as a lost cause to begin with, since it was already beginning to crumble before they started snooping around. On the other hand, they might have recognized that I was trying to fix it, and set something up to try and stop me."

"Do you have any idea what that something might be?"

"I don't. I have to be prepared for anything. I suppose that's where you might be able to help me. If we were to get physically attacked, you would be able to defend us better than I could by myself. Let's just hope it doesn't come to that."

Aja got up and started putting her empty cup of gloid away. "Oh, and since you're not busy right now," she said, "The least you could do is take a bath. I didn't notice before when I was outside, but you smell horrible."

I sniffed my arm, but it didn't seem like it had a particular odor to it. Nor could I account for what a human would find distasteful or not. "Where would I do that?"

"Go upstairs to the third room on the left. To turn the water, turn one of the metal knobs by the white basin. One is for warm water, the other is for cold water. And make sure you use some soap. It's the white bar with the word 'Mox' on it. Just scrub that all over your stupid fur for a good long while. I don't want to have to put up with that smell while I'm coding."

I shrugged and headed where Aja told me to go. The room I entered was almost entirely made of white rock, mixed with wood and metal trimming, and many reflective surfaces. Looking at myself, I wondered how I could answer the question, "What is a klee?" A klee was what I was, but what did that mean? Was a klee a bipedal figure with fur, claws, and ears that grew from the top of its head? Was a klee a descendant of the first klees that had grown from the pods of the first flowers on Eelong, as the story went? Neither of those answers felt sufficient.

After scrubbing myself with the 'soap' and water enough times to ensure Aja couldn't complain (with water that flowed effortlessly from metallic contraptions- what a marvel!), I went back downstairs to rejoin my host. Aja had changed out of the blue fabric, and was now intently tapping away on a device with many buttons and a screen that displayed a long stream of green writing. It had grown dark outside, but the house was still well lit by small versions of the lights that I had seen in the tunnel.

"So, what's the plan for tomorrow?" I asked.

"I should have the Reality Bug finished by tonight, so I'll try to plug it into the Lifelight grid tomorrow," Aja said, not bothering to look away from the screen. "Your job is to follow me there, and try to keep me safe if anything goes wrong. For now, though, you should just write your journals and get some rest."

"Journals?"

"Yeah, journals. You send them to your acolyte using your ring to keep them informed of what's happening while you're on another world. Just write them, put them near the ring, and say your acolyte's name."

"You sound like you've done all this before."

"I haven't, actually. This is just stuff I learned from Volom and Evangeline. I'm not supposed to travel to other worlds until the problem on my world is resolved, as are all the other Travelers. I guess you're the exception since Eelong's sealed off from the intruder now. Hmph."

"So there's no way of getting to Eelong once the flume is closed off?"

"Yeah."

There went that possibility. "Which room is the one I'm staying in?"

"Third floor, first one you run into. I left some stationary there for your journals. Now, I'm busy, so if you'll excuse me..."

I left and headed upstairs. Having a way to contact dad and the others had reawakened the dull anger that had been laying dormant inside me since I had left the flume. Once I entered the room, I immediately grabbed one of the tools Aja had left me and began scratching furiously at some paper. I ended up tearing the first sheet in half, as I was moving the tool too fiercely, so I slowed down for the second one. I didn't write about anything that had happened to me on Veelox. I just wrote about how what dad had done was horrible and how I badly wanted to go home and strangle him and how I hoped they would all die and so on until the sheet of paper was covered with my frenzied, barely legible handwriting and I was breathing heavily again. What I had written was all that I felt like saying, so I put the paper next to my ring and called out Boon's name. The ring sucked away the paper in a flash of light, and then it turned dark again.

Feeling tired, I set the ring down and laid on the bed in the room. But I didn't feel like sleeping. I didn't want to fall asleep in this strange place with all these weird devices and people who were all stuck in a giant dreaming machine. I didn't want to be the only klee in worlds populated only by talking gars. I wanted to be home. I wanted to be in Leeandra again. I wanted to browse the markets and angrily haggle over a new bit of iron for my spear. I wanted to crouch among the tall grasses and listen for the faint scratching of tangs as they went about their business. I wanted to listen to the soft wind whistling through the trees late at night. I wanted to hear the humming of insects as they buzzed around flowers. Anything but this cold, quiet place filled with rotten steel and broken stone and garbage and tiny gardens with nothing in them.

"I want to go home," I whispered.

No one heard me, of course. I was still trapped here with no way of going back home. It left me with an aching feeling in my chest that nothing would help. I wanted mom to be there, to comfort me somehow. But she was dead and that wouldn't happen. It made me want to cry. It was silly of me, as being a crying blubbering softie wasn't going to help anyone. Instead, I clenched my teeth and muttered to myself.

"Help Aja stop Lifelight... help Aja stop Lifelight... help Aja stop Lifelight..."

It was a long time before I managed to fall asleep that night, when I did, my sleep was plagued with nightmares.


	3. Hardware Malfunction

The next morning crept in with blustery winds throwing themselves against the house. Slowly cracking my eyes open, I saw that I was still in Veelox, in the opulent house Aja and her aunt were staying in. A thin blue light was edging in through the window, slowly illuminating the room. A brief look outside told me the sun hadn't risen yet, although it was very close to doing so. I had no idea of how long I had slept, as the exact cycles of day and night on this world were a mystery to me. I felt the same aching in my chest again, gnawing at me to return home, but I tried to suppress it as best I could. Right now, I had a job to do.

I slowly went down the stairs, to the first floor. Evangeline was up and fiddling with her own little mechanical device, but Aja was nowhere to be seen.

"Where's Aja?" I asked.

Evangeline put her gadget down and glanced at me. "Why, you're up early! Aja is still sleeping. Her shift doesn't begin for another hour or so. Since you're awake, I guess you could help me make breakfast."

"Are you making gloid again?"

"Saying I _make_ gloid is giving to much credit to me, I think!" Evangeline laughed. "Unfortunately, gloid is pretty much all we have left to eat these days. There aren't any people working to bring over real food from the farms to the city anymore. We still have gloid because it takes years for it to start rotting, and because they also use it in Lifelight. But there aren't any people making it any more, so we're going to run out of it too, soon enough."

I was beginning to feel hungry, but I still really didn't want to touch the gloid if I didn't have to. It just didn't seem at all like anything edible to me. Klees usually ate meat and eggs, and small, dry fruit if there was nothing else available, but not blue sludge that came wrapped up in little packages. Where did the stuff come from? Why was it blue? Blue was the color of the sky and of water, not of living things. Why did it not go bad after a few days, like actual food was supposed to? I just couldn't get over how strange this stuff was, and I wasn't even considering how different a typical human's diet might be.

I then recalled Aja mentioning that there were animals prowling about in the city, and decided that I'd rather take my chances hunting than with the gloid. I quickly went back to my and retrieved my spear (I didn't feel safe enough to sleep without it), and headed for the door.

"Where are you going?" Evangeline asked.

"Hunting. For breakfast." I nudged my spear a little.

"You'd best be careful. Some of the animals out there can be quite fierce."

"There's no way they're as fierce as me, I assure you."

I had no way of proving that, of course, but I had a hunch that I was right. Or perhaps I was just being arrogant.

As I stepped out into the cold city morning, I strained my senses to try and pick out any animals that might be stumbling by. All I could smell was garbage and all I could hear was the wind. I decided to head left, down a cracked and potholed road, to try and see if I could find anything there. I walked past more decaying buildings, noticing nothing new at first. Then I heard footsteps, softly ringing out in the distance. The sound came from the other side of a set of buildings, but there was an alleyway that cut between them. I slipped through it, taking care not to make much noise.

On the other side of the alley, I saw another human walking about. This one was clad in ragged, patchy clothes that didn't look like they fit it, and it was constantly glancing around and to the sides, which forced me to duck behind cover several times in the process of watching it. After nervously creeping around a bit more, it walked into one of the buildings by the street, which was a small little place with smashed windows and a door that seemed to be having trouble staying on its hinges.

What it intended to accomplish, I wasn't sure of, but it didn't get the chance to do so. A group of several other humans quickly arrived and headed for the same building. I heard shouting, and then a thunderous crack that echoed into the air and made me flinch. The group then dragged the first human out of the building, leaving a trail of fresh blood across the ground. There was little doubt in my mind that the human was dead.

Now the group was arguing, and I could pick out their voices from where I crouching.

"What the hell was he doing there?" an older male human said. "Everyone still walking in this city knows not to trespass."

"Maybe he's new here," another voice said.

"Nobody is new here. Nobody ever comes here. There's something more to this."

"What do you mean?"

"You don't think this has anything to do with the people _he_ warned us about, do you?"

"No way. One straggler running into the stockhouse? That can't be it."

The humans started walking towards the alley, so I had to quickly move further back. One of them might have caught a glimpse of me as I scurried away, for he glanced in my direction and frowned, but he didn't feel the need investigate further. The conversation died off as the humans moved further and further away from me.

I felt oddly calm after witnessing what was probably a cold blooded murder. Perhaps it was due to the fact that the victim and the perpetrators still looked a lot like animals to me, although they certainly didn't behave like animals. I couldn't exactly figure out why that human had been killed just for walking into an abandoned house, or what the other humans were so concerned about, but I imagined Aja might be able to.

In the meantime, though, I still had breakfast to catch, and any of the animals that might have been hanging around the area had to have been scared away by the loud noises the humans had made. Grumbling to myself, I headed back the way I had came and tried sniffing around on the other side of the street.

* * *

I ended up returning empty handed, having only managed to catch a small, brown bird that I devoured on the spot. On the other hand, I had to question if Aja and Evangeline would have the stomach to see me skinning and cutting up a dead animal in their house. Based on what I knew of them so far, they seemed to be quite tame. If they were to be suddenly thrust into Leeandra, I doubt they would do very well for themselves, although there would certainly be a few klees who would be willing to take them in on the basis of curiosity alone.

Aja had already gotten up by the time I got back, and was busy fiddling away with her wrist device in the gardens in front of her house.

"Are you busy?" I asked, causing her to jump back in surprise.

"Could you not do that?" Aja grumbled, dusting herself off.

"Do what?"

"Sneak up on me without making a sound. Just stomp your feet a bit if you're getting close to me, okay?"

"Perhaps you should just work on your hearing."

"Hmph."

The sun had now fully risen above the dim blue horizon, faintly warming the blustery city in between the shadows of the enormous buildings. A flock of dark colored birds passed by overhead, before settling on a rooftop and crowing away. A brief blast of wind rushed past me and made me shiver a little. Although I was covered well enough by my fur coat, I still wouldn't have said no to a cloak or a scarf in this place. It was quite a contrast from Leeandra, where wearing anything on the ground was just asking for heatstroke. The only people who bothered with clothes there were those stuffy city council members who could spend all day in their windy tree houses enjoying their power and the view. Just thinking about it made me want to roll my eyes.

"I saw something strange while I was out this morning," I said. "Someone apparently went somewhere they shouldn't have, and got killed. Or badly beaten up. I wasn't close enough to be completely sure of the details."

"That isn't strange, that's just sad," Aja huffed. "With supplies dwindling across the city, gangs have been sprouting up and hoarding most of what remains. There has been fighting between them over their stockpiles, and innocent people have been caught in the crossfire. All the more reason for us to hurry and try and get this problem sorted out."

"You're not worried about what these gangs might be up to?"

"Not now. They wouldn't attack me unless they were really desperate. I do work with Lifelight, and most of the people outside of it have family or friends still plugged in there. As long as I'm still trying to keep them safe, I'm safe as well... when it's light out, anyway, and as long as I don't stick my head anywhere where it doesn't belong." Aja wrinkled her nose. "You, on the other hand... well, most people would just think you're a wild animal. I'd keep to the shadows and try not to be seen for now. You're good at that, right?"

I was quite good at sneaking around in Leeandra, as one had to be in order to be a successful hunter. It was harder here in Rubic City, with there being much less cover and many more loud surfaces, but I could manage. "Of course."

"Then let's get going. Follow me."

We set off on a path through the city that seemed, at first, to make no sense. I saw that Aja was glancing up at signs whenever we turned in a different direction, and figured that they must be some kind of navigational tool for the city. The names on the signs, however, still meant nothing to me.

"Did Seegan ever tell you about any of this before you left?" Aja said, breaking the silence. "Or did he really just let you stumble here, blind?"

"He might have mentioned details of it in some of his old stories. He was big on myths and fables and things like that. I never listened to them, though." Now I was wishing I had. I never imagined _that_ thought would ever cross my mind.

"That's stupid, but it's also a rather common practice, believe it or not. From what I've read of Volom's old journals, there were at least two other Travelers who haven't bothered informing their successors of what they're in for. One of them hadn't even picked one, despite being close to sixty years old! It's crazy."

"Perhaps breaking the news that they have to be travelers isn't pleasant."

At that moment, we turned around a corner and were greeted with a strange sight. Standing amidst all the boxy steel towers and elegant smaller homes was a large, smooth black pyramid. The sides of it were dull and torn in a few places, but looking at it still gave the impression of seeing something utterly alien in a sea of normalcy.

"That," Aja said, "Is the main Lifelight center of Rubic City. Most of them aren't this extravagant, but this is where Lifelight was invented, so it got special treatment."

We continued walking towards a small notch at one of the edges of the pyramid, which turned out to be a set of dark glass doors leading inside of it.

"We're just going to walk in there?" I asked. "I don't think most people here would find my appearance... friendly."

"Don't worry about it. Most of the people working here are kind of out of it these days. Not that I blame them, really."

The doors opened to reveal a dimly lit interior, with walls of black trimmed with dark green lines that ran at precise right angles. The floor was a dark gray metal which had lost its luster a long time ago, that was covered with an unsightly brown rug. There were a collection of paintings that were hung up on the walls, and all of them were portraits of a human's face that grew older the further away from the doors you got. Another human was sitting at a desk that was clearly designed to be occupied by two more people, and he didn't bother glancing up as we entered.

"Morning, Setty," Aja said, finally causing it to look up.

Setty stared at me for a moment, then blinked and looked at Aja. "Are you bringing a friend?"

"Friend? There's no one here but me and you."

Setty looked at me again before shrugging and motioning for Aja to go on.

"'Out of it' is an understatement," I said, as soon as Setty was out of earshot.

"Well, it doesn't help that he keeps popping into Lifelight when his shifts are over," Aja said. "Going in and out of it too much can lead to some side effects. Hallucinations, phantom pains, things like that. He probably didn't think you were actually real."

"Good to know."

As we progressed further into the pyramid, the ceiling began to rise higher and higher, until we entered a more open area where we could see all the way to the top of the structure. The sides of each face of the pyramid were separated into little boxy rooms that were each marked with a number, with the highest one I could see being 388. Thin walkways reached out from each level of labeled rooms to the center of the area, which held a tower that rose all the way to the top of the building. Aja walked to the base of the tower and pressed a light green button next to a set of metal doors, which opened of their own will to reveal a tiny room.

"What's in there?" I asked, as Aja walked inside the room.

"It's an _elevator_ , Kasha," Aja said. "It can take us up or down, to all the floors in this building. Come on in."

I followed her to the room, and the doors closed behind us. Aja pushed another button on a small terminal, and the room suddenly jolted to life. It was indeed moving, although I wasn't completely sure if it was going up or down. After moving for a few seconds, it stopped, and the doors opened again, revealing one of the upper level catwalks. Aja stepped out and headed to one of the rooms, which was labeled with the number 37.

The inside of the room was quite minimalistic in design. The walls and the floor were covered with a dark, felt-like material that was peeling away in places. A bright yellow light in the ceiling illuminated what few bits of furniture were present. There was a chair that sat next to a screen and terminal with various buttons that seemed to fold out of the wall, and an empty metal tube jutted out of another wall with a couple of spongy looking things on metal arms hanging over it. Aja hopped right over to the chair and took a seat, her hands firing away at the little buttons that plastered the terminal. The screen quickly came to life and played a soothing tone while big green letters popped up that said, 'Welcome to Lifelight.'

I waited for Aja to explain what she was doing, but she kept firing away at her little screen, paying no attention to me. I decided to cough loudly next to her ear.

"What is it?" Aja grumbled, not even bothering to turn in my direction.

"Are you working on that reality bug thing?" I asked.

"Yes."

"How long is that going to take?"

"Just give me a minute, alright?!"

I stood there with a sullen look on my face as Aja kept being engrossed in her own little world. Thankfully, it wasn't much longer before Aja put up her hands and sighed in relief.

"There, it's done," Aja said. "Now we can just sit and watch the carnage unfold."

"Carnage?"

"Well, the carnage is only going to be in people's heads, but I doubt it's going to be pretty. But it has to be in order for it to work. I need my program to make Lifelight seem so unpleasant for people that they would never consider using it again."

Aja pulled up a bunch of scenes on her screen, and focused on one in particular, which showed a human eating a large meal out in a sunny field.

"That guy just got his jump infected with the Reality Bug," Aja said. "Watch what happens next."

"His jump?"

"Yeah. It's your own Lifelight experience. Or your own dream, as Evangeline would say."

I watched as the human's picnic was ruined by a sudden rain overcoming him. A light green symbol appeared in the corner of the screen and began flashing, accompanied by an irritating sound.

"That means he's calling for help, asking for one of us on staff to help fix his jump," Aja said. "Of course, even if I wanted to help him with that, I couldn't. I designed the Reality Bug to be impossible to fix, short of physically replacing all the computers and starting all over again."

Soon all of the jumps had been hit by Aja's bug, and the screen was constantly chirping at us to fix them.

"How long do you think it will take for people to start leaving their jumps?"

"I'd say a few hours for most people. The longer people stay in Lifelight, the harder it gets for them to leave. They'd rather stick around in a nightmare instead of facing the real world. I'd imagine there will be a couple of early bloomers, though."

Aja let out a deep sigh and sunk into her chair. "I can't believe this is finally looking to be over. You couldn't understand, of course, but I've been having to watch my own world slowly dying, bit by bit, without seeing my actions doing anything to help it. Knowing that I'm finally changing all of that for the better really feels liberating. Veelox may look like a terrible place to you now, but things are going to get better. I swear that I'll make it happen."

"So you think we've already fixed the problems here? I mean, didn't you say there were other Lifelight... things besides this one?"

Aja grinned. "There are, but they're all hooked up on the same network, running the same software. My little creation is hitting them all as we speak. Which would technically make it a worm instead of a bug, but I called it a bug because I want the people here to believe that."

I doubted that Aja's project was, in fact, an insect. "What do you mean by that?"

"A bug is a kind of problem with the system that would have arisen naturally, while a worm would be manually injected into it. I want people to think that the problem came from Lifelight _itself_ , so that they never trust it again. If they know that I was the one who caused the system to screw up, they might be willing to try it again once I'm out of the picture. So I set up the Reality Bug to look like it came from a problem with the source code. The only one who I figure could tell that it wasn't would be Dr Zetlin, and he's close to seventy years old at this point, and probably has dementia or something like that."

"Seventy years? That's a long time to be alive." Most people at Leeandra were lucky to make it to forty.

"Around here, it's average, although it would be higher if Lifelight wasn't part of the picture."

The screen suddenly emitted a different tone as a bright red, flashing symbol popped on the screen, which caused Aja to turn back and stare at it.

"What's that about?" I asked.

"Someone died," Aja said. "It's not so uncommon for people who spend a long time in their jumps. It turns out that laying down in a tube all day isn't that conducive to your health, and it doesn't help that a number of the people here are quite old. Volom was working on trying to keep people alive in the tubes longer before he went missing, but that wouldn't have fixed the real problem. Still," Aja rubbed her forehead, "I'm worried that this guy might have been pushed over the edge because the Reality Bug was too much for him. Fright can occasionally do that to people. I'm going to go and see what happened."

Having nothing better to do, I followed her to the dead man, who was in yet another dull, square room. A semicircular slab of metal had pushed out of the wall, which showed the body lying still on a smooth black cushion, naked save for a pad at its midsection, with a couple of tubes connecting to its wrist. Aja, of course, ignored it and moved right over to another screen, where she began typing away.

"Hmm," Aja muttered. "That makes no sense. How could..."

Another identical red symbol popped up on the screen.

"Okay, we definitely need to take a look at that one, too," Aja said, and headed out of the room at a much more hurried pace.

The next corpse would found was just like the last one.

"No way," Aja said. "This can't be right. This couldn't have..."

Three more red symbols had appeared on the screen.

"What's going on, Aja?" I asked.

"Something is seriously wrong here," Aja said, nervousness now creeping into her voice. "These people are all showing signs of being electrocuted, starting at the head, but the only way that could happen is if the actual hardware was malfunctioning. But there's no way the Reality Bug could have..."

The screen chirped as a new barrage of red icons slid onto it.

"It doesn't matter," Aja said. "We have to turn everything off. Now."

Aja rushed off back to the elevator. This time we headed down to the main level, where a couple of other humans were now running about frantically. Aja ignored them and ran to a heavy metal door, which slowly ground open of its own accord when Aja waved her wrist device at it. It revealed a set of grimy stairs heading downwards, which were dimly lit by old blue lights that flickered every few seconds. These ended at a medium sized room with a large set of buttons and knobs that twinkled and flashed, which were hooked up to a large screen showing all sorts of things. Aja immediately ran for one switch and pressed it, which did nothing.

"Damnit!" Aja shouted. "I forgot they disabled the manual shutdown after the riots. We'll have to stop the jumps." She then flicked a few other switches and turned a knob, which caused a few moving pictures on the screen to freeze.

I, of course, was still as lost as I was when the whole frantic business began. "Aja-"

"Be quiet!" Aja snapped. She then pressed another few buttons and typed something else in, and then began speaking. "This is a emergency broadcast by Lifelight Station 1. A serious problem has occurred that is causing the BTM devices to shock the people inside of them with lethal amounts of electricity as soon as they end their jumps. This is most likely related to another issue that was corrupting jumps that also appeared this morning, and was spreading to other Stations. All Lifelight Stations should manually terminate all jumps if possible, or freeze the jumps and then cut the power. Repeat, all Lifelight Stations should manually terminate all jumps or freeze them and cut the power."

I expected Aja to keep running around, acting like she knew everything and had the situation under control, but it seemed like her last burst of energy was her limit. Instead, she sunk down onto the floor and held her face in her hands.

"How could this have happened?" she said. "I didn't... I never..."

"Aja?"

"I never wrote a single line of code that could have done that. None of it is self modifying. I don't see how..."

"Aja, what happened?"

"What happened is that I screwed up, you stupid..." Aja sighed. "The Reality Bug. I must have done something wrong with it, because it's now killing people who leave their jumps. I didn't think the machines that did the neural interfacing had enough power to kill, but..."

I scratched my head. "Didn't you say you expected some kind of interference, though? From the intruder? What if this is it?"

Aja snorted. "Yeah, right. You're telling me he planned his little virus to activate at the exact same time as mine, while leaving no trace on the system before when it was implemented? Trust me, he isn't that subtle. Or good with computers. I've heard of some of the things he's done to the other worlds. No, this has to be my problem. Who knows how many people will be dead because of me when this is over?"

"Okay, maybe it's your problem. How do we fix it?"

Aja stood up and started running her hands through her hair. "There are two options. Right now, all the jumps are paused, so the people inside them are basically in limbo. That gives us a little time, but it was never designed to be used for extended periods of time. We can try and cut the power to the place, although I'm now afraid that won't work, given how things have been going. Or, we can try and dig out Zetlin."

"Zetlin again?"

"He _invented_ Lifelight. But he also has been using it as an escape from reality longer than anyone else, so he wouldn't be happy to see that we woke him up. He might not also be in the best state of mind at his age, but it's worth a shot. First, let's check out the power."

Aja led me down another grimy hallway, which was filled with gritty metal tubes, constantly encroaching mildew, and the faint sounds of water dripping in the distance. She stopped at a door which was covered by a large sign which said, ' **DANGER: HIGH VOLTAGE** '. Aja tried to pull it open, but it wouldn't budge.

"What the hell? This is never locked." Aja stepped out of the way. "Here, you try opening it."

I tried pulling on it like it was the only thing standing between me and a way home, but the door wasn't going anywhere.

"Do you know who has the key for this?" I asked.

"There is no key for it because it's designed to be always open!" Aja snapped. "This was probably sabotage. I bet the intruder barricaded the other side. Why he did that, I don't know, but it's bad luck for us. Or maybe the janitor just went crazy. So it looks like Zetlin is our best bet."

We left the dirty underbelly of the facility and headed back up to the green and gray corridors above. Aja led me away from the center and off to the side, where we found a room similar all the other individual rooms with occupants in the pyramid, which was numbered 0. This one didn't have a screen and terminal waiting for Aja to hammer away at, though.

"Yeah, I thought it would be like this," Aja said. "Zetlin really didn't want people messing with his fantasies. We can't manually end his jump."

"Wouldn't ending it, ah, kill him too?" I asked.

"Nah. His jump is special. It's not connected in any way to the others. There's no way the Reality Bug could have gotten here. I mean..." Aja frowned. "Well, just to be safe, it would be best to end his jump the old fashioned way."

"What do you mean?"

"We'll pull his tube out of the wall. Come help me grab this."

She motioned to a series of indents on a wall, which marked the circle that was the tube where Zetlin had spend so many years wilting away. The tube was fastened strongly to something, but not so strongly that it wasn't slowly giving way as we kept on pulling at it. After another minute, there was a harsh snapping sound, and the whole thing jerked forward. We pulled it all the way out.

"Oh no," Aja whispered.

Zetlin was dead, but it didn't look like the machine in the tube had been the culprit, for there was a knife sticking in his chest that was covered in blood that had long since dried.

"I think we need a new plan," I said.


End file.
